09:05:00
TO rid the state of kidnapping Cross River State Governor Ben Ayade has sent an Executive Bill to the House of Assembly seeking death penalty for convicted kidnappers.
The bill, which was sent yesterday, also seeks to empower the state to confiscate property belonging to the perpetrators and other criminals in the state.
It also offers rewards to citizens who offer credible information to security agencies on activities of criminals in the state.
For sometime now, kidnapping has been going on the rise, leading to abduction of senior citizens, including fathers of a former deputy governor, Chief Cobham, former Deputy Speaker of the state’s Assembly, Mr. Dominic Aqua and a number of others at different occasions.
Meanwhile, Ayade, according to a statement issued by his Chief Press Secretary, Mr. Christian Ita, has approved with immediate effect the appointment of Mr. Jude Ngaji as the State Security Adviser (SSA).
Ngaji was Chief of Staff to former Governor Liyel Imoke.
The governor has also approved the setting up of a Security Taskforce code-named “Operation Skolombo” to flush out miscreants in the streets of Calabar.
The taskforce has General Mannings Nyiam (rtd) as Chairman.
Also, Prof. Ayade has assured to offset salary arrears of local councils’ workers within a week.
He said he was hitherto not aware of the development, stating that he thought all workers in the state were paid same time.
At a media chat, the governor disclosed that what the state needed to do was to purify the system so as to be able to meet up with payment of salaries.
“There were issues of ghost workers so that what comes in was not sufficient to pay workers’ salaries. So what we needed to do is do a purification of the process by purifying their payroll system,” Ayade said.
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